German Chancellor Angela Merkel came to America on Thursday to deliver a commencement address at Harvard University, and she used the opportunity to destroy Donald Trump.
As Politico reported, Merkel “urged Harvard graduates Thursday to ‘tear down walls of ignorance and narrow-mindedness’ in a speech laced with apparent jibes at Donald Trump and his policies.”
Merkel slammed Trump on border walls, trade wars, climate change and his erratic and unstable behavior.
More from Politico:
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Though she did not name the U.S. president, the German chancellor devoted much of her Harvard University commencement speech to attacking major pillars of Trump’s presidency: protectionism, trade wars and building walls.
She also warned of the “threat climate change poses to our planet’s resources†and called for the world to work together. Trump announced in 2017 that he would pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement.
…
The chancellor received chuckles and applause from the audience when she seemed to comment on Trump’s reputation for impulsiveness, stressing that it’s better not to “always act on our first impulses,†even under pressure.
Trump is an international embarrassment
With Trump as president, the United States is no longer seen as the leader of the free world.
As Sunny Handal of The Independent noted after Trump took office in 2017, “The German Chancellor isn’t just the leader of Europe, she is now the de-facto leader of the free world.”
Handal wrote that Trump “isn’t motivated by protecting liberal democracy or freedom.” Instead, the president’s “sole ideology is Trumpism: corporate autocracy with a populist facade.”
Merkel’s remarks on Thursday may not have mentioned Donald Trump by name, but she made it very clear that the biggest threat to global democracy is the current occupant of the Oval Office.
Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook and Twitter
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
